The Threads Blog

As of June 15, 2008, the National Debt is $9.4 trillion. In 2006, the government spent $406 billion on interest payments. What would happen if we were not spending more money than we were bringing in? How much better could we spend $406 billion than simply making interest payments? Now think personally for a minute. The average household has somewhere between $7,000 and $10,000 worth of credit card debt. Which means on average, around $1,500 is spent annually on paying interest. This is not even counting the mortgage, school loans, or car loans. Why do we feel it so necessary to live a lifestyle that requires more money than we earn? It sounds like a dead end proposition to me!

Words have a very unique ability. Very few things have the power to immediately bring tears, laughter, anger, happiness, inspiration or discouragement like the use of words. As a famous masked philosopher once noted, “With great power comes great responsibility.” I have to admit here that I was smacked in the face this week as I studied through this lesson (focusing on selected passages from Proverbs). It’s not that I use bad words in the sense of cussing or to intentionally destroy or anything, but I fail miserably at fully thinking through what I’m going to say before I say it. This flaw has the ability to get me in trouble from time to time. I also feel the need at times to say something that simply does not need to be said. I’m not sure if it is an attempt to impress someone or just an attempt to be liked, but very often I find myself thinking, “Why did I just tell that person that?” after a conversation. It’s like the conversation is going along just fine and an ending point is approaching but rather than taking the exit I decide to journey on. I then find myself lost and confused in a conversation I didn’t mean to have. I quickly take the first available exit, but then I beat myself for looking stupid. I’m learning several things in life right now, and this week’s study pointed very clearly at a few lessons:

For the past several days I’ve been trying to find someone in the Bible who had a casual encounter with Christ that ended well. I have not found any yet, but page after page, chapter after chapter, I find zealots and rebels having unbelievable experiences with Christ. The disciples are great examples. All but one met Christ and never looked back. Judas, I would argue, remained casual, and we all know how his life ended. So the thought I keep coming back to is how can I and how can we have a more zealous faith? We make Jesus seem so nice and loving and we treat Him like a friend who stops by for dinner once a month or an acquaintance we run into at Target. You won’t find that Jesus in the Bible though. You will find a Savior who lovingly accepts all who choose to follow Him. That idea of following Him is where things get a little hairy. Thats where true adventure begins.